Insider tip: lifestyle TV doesn't pay

Has anyone noticed that grooming expert Kyan on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy has no actual expertise? His accumulated wisdom seems to represent about 15 minutes' research on skin-care products' instructions - and, unless it's an advantage to bring a neutral observer with you to the hairdressers, I don't find his standing around skills very useful either.

Not that any of the Fab Five is exactly indispensable. Queer Eye is the reality TV version of Seinfeld. In both cases, the drama depends on characters whose greatest challenge is living in New York. Jerry Seinfeld was basically the queer eye: well-groomed, fastidiously clean, expert in the etiquette of day-to-day life. George was every plaid-wearing slob that ever lied about being a marine biologist.

The difference is that now it's supposed to be real. But I'm a bit worried when my TV starts flashing tips. Dried parsley, the Fab Five gourmand told me once, is useless. But does anyone watching this show really use dried parsley? Does it even exist? What's next? Insider warnings against Kraft singles in the nine-cheese risotto? And he's potentially the least useless member of the team.

For example, things I have learnt from culture guy: tickets to a cool show are useful for dating. Oh, and body language: when entering a room, avoid crouching and skulking like Quasimodo. Yet many important questions are left unanswered. What is the word less naff than girl- or boy-friend, less clinical than partner and less tantric than lover for the one you're with? How do I keep that scabby crust off my lip when I drink red wine? These and other pressing problems need the resources of a major network thrown at them as soon as possible.

What they are good at on Queer Eye is obsessively classifying people as either gay or straight. Seldom does the word man appear in their dialogue unprefaced by a sexual orientation. The frisson mined from hilarious gay-straight culture barriers is seemingly inexhaustible.

There is a word for this stuff that you don't even know you know (because not knowing it would make no difference). It's called trivia. Television is now hell-bent on teaching us about it, for real. If it's not Queer Eye rescuing helpless yuppies from their unfashionable beards, it's the other lifestyle shows, or dating primers like The Bachelor, or reality TV shows like Big Brother that reward people for being eminently normal. The premise there is, essentially, we dare you to live in a sharehouse: cook, clean, chat, shower, fight and have clandestine sex with your flatmates. Only, instead of having to clean out five years of junk alone, the last person in residence gets a pile of cash.

I'm not saying I don't need help; it's just that no TV show seems to be meeting my precise needs. I'm still waiting for Queer Eye to give someone a Just Jeans style-infusion or a crash course in taco kits. And what I really need help with is my income style. Can you help me, Fab Five?

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